Court to hear appeal filed by Christian group removed from Arab-American festival

Jan. 20, 2014

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

A court hearing is set for Tuesday in a federal appeals court in Ohio over a lawsuit saying that Wayne County sheriff’s officers unfairly removed Christian missionaries from a festival in Dearborn after their anti-Muslim preaching angered people in the crowd.

Attorneys with the American Freedom Law Center — a conservative group co-founded by Ann Arbor attorney Robert Muise — are appealing a lower court’s dismissal of their lawsuit against the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office.

In June 2012, a Christian group from California — the Bible Believers — brought a pig’s head mounted on a pole and made anti-Muslim remarks at the annual Arab International Festival. That enraged some Muslims, who hurled objects at them and yelled.

The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office said it asked the Christian evangelists to leave for safety reasons and to prevent an escalation of the tensions.

In May, U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan in Detroit dismissed the lawsuit, saying Wayne County was justified in removing the missionaries “because of the effect the speech had on the crowd.”

The conservative legal center filed an appeal, saying that reasonable free speech should not be curtailed just because it might prompt a violent reaction. They said it gives what’s called a “heckler’s veto” that would quash free speech.

The arguments will be heard before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which has jurisdiction over cases in Michigan.

In recent years, there have been growing religious tensions at the annual festival, which resulted in the city of Dearborn canceling the event last year for the first time in its history. There have been other lawsuits stemming from how Christian groups have been treated at the festival, the biggest annual outdoor gathering for Arab Americans in the U.S.

Christian groups say they are harassed by the city and by Muslims at the festival, a claim city officials and local Muslims have said is an inaccurate description of the tensions.

Last year, the city apologized to Christian missionaries it arrested and charged in 2010. The missionaries were found not guilty after a trial.